We are on a lifelong — no, eternal — pilgrimage of discovering and knowing God and His nature, His love, His ways.

Along the way of that pilgrimage, we drop the outer things one by one. They lie strewn along the road behind us, no longer useful for the journey. They were all prefaced by the pronoun “my.” My wife, my husband, my children, my home, my job, my friends, my church. They gave us our identity. But we have shifted to a new source of identity. In the end, God can give us back many of the things we had to lose along the way, because we don’t need them anymore. They are no longer life to us. Christ is our life, and we will settle for nothing less.

Now we are truly liberated. We are God’s free persons. We can have the world’s possessions and it’s OK. We can lack the world’s possessions and it’s OK. We can have status and it’s OK. We can lack status and it’s OK. We can be with people or with no one and it’s OK. We “have learned to be content in whatever circumstances” (Philippians 4:11). We reign with Him in life. – Dan Stone

Father used Dan’s book late 2006 to bring to my consciousness the truth of the ages that God is love, and God is an ‘other-lover’, and now I was an ‘other-lover’ – just like my partner Sue, who had so often demonstrated Jesus to me in the way she loved our daughter, Natalie.

I vaguely remember hearing the story of Joseph being imprisoned for 13 years, and Paul’s visit to Arabia for 3 years and thinking at the time “wow, what a long time to be away” – but now, 14 years after inviting God into my life, I see how long I have denied Him access to my body as a resource to do His global transformation work.

And yet, what I thought at first was me losing possessions, now, I wouldn’t change a thing about the way Father has cared for and transformed me, and continues to shape me for His purpose.

So like Dan said “Now we are truly liberated. We are God’s free persons. We can have the world’s possessions and it’s OK. We can lack the world’s possessions and it’s OK. We can have status and it’s OK. We can lack status and it’s OK. We can be with people or with no one and it’s OK. We “have learned to be content in whatever circumstances” (Philippians 4:11). We reign with Him in life.”

P.S. God willing, we’d be delighted to send you a used copy of the book, if you’ll contact me here or via Twitter or Facebook. Please include your name, phone number, and shipping address.